The Den of Nurdage
The 'Q' Stands For "Qameron"
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Mario Kart Wii
And now, the online fun of Mario Kart!

My friend code is 4339-2990-3722.

The old tracks from the N64 version are still deep in my brain.

For some reason, I've found "drifting" to be much easier with the Wiil than with a traditional controller, from say Double Dash. They may have just made it easier.

The problem with the Wiil is gripping it while applying enough pressure to hold down the accelerator; too much of that and my forearm gets tired fast.

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Nurd.status: amused

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Super Smash Brothers Brawl
I got Super Smash Brothers Brawl, the game for which I bought the Wii.

My friend code is 0087-2039-4826.

I've played a bit with the single-player modes, and it's bring back great memories of middle school wasted on the original N64 version.

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Current Location: home
Nurd.status: amused

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Signs of Spring
Riding home today, I heard geese. Between that and the Spring Forward, it's starting to feel like the end of winter! Which is a little bit sad, as winter is my favorite season - except in Boston, where it rains too much and snows too little. Stupid global warming.

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Current Location: home
Nurd.status: peaceful
Current Music: "Get Down Moses" by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros

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Vote!
I'm about to head to my polling place (the Hellenic Cultural Center) and bubble in the oval next to Barack Obama.

I originally decided that I would vote for him if he ran after I read his autobiography Dreams From My Father early last year; it wasn't until MA moved the primary date up to Super Duper Tuesday that I thought that my vote might actually matter. Previously, the MA primary would probably have been too late to decide anything, and I had no worries about MA voting for anyone other than the eventual Democratic candidate.

As for Obama himself, I like his stance on technology and openness (which earned him the endorsement of Lawrence Lessig), as well as his realistic troop-withdrawal plan, and his repeated willingness to negotiate with everyone from belligerent foreign states to Republicans in order to get things done.

A number of my LJ friends have already posted better explanations than this; my peers seem to be going overwhelmingly for Obama. You can see a sample of them as written by [info]ccommack, [info]sammka, and [info]carpenter, among many others.

It is eerie to me how this election is converging towards the plot of the last season of The West Wing.

I only hope my polling place has I Voted stickers.

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Nurd.status: excited

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Numerology
I realized yesterday that I was 25.25 years old on the 25th. Nifty.

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Nurd.status: contemplative

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Paul & Storm and Jonathan Coulton
Thanks to [info]jere7my's [FUN] post, I went to the absolutely excellent Paul & Storm and Jonathan Coulton concert at Johnny D's in Davis Square.

P&S opened (am I the only one who thinks Storm looks like Steve Jobs?), but they did backup on at least half of Coulton's songs. I was introduced to some amusing new music, so I bought a P&S CD and a shirt to add to my Witty T-Shirts line. It also means I can go one more day without doing laundry.

Coulton played a number of the songs that I had heard, most importantly "Code Monkey" (my personal anthem), but also "I Feel Fantastic", "Skullcrusher Mountain", "Re: Your Brains", plus some new-to-me songs. I'll have to get the Thing A Week boxed set, I think; I was out of cash at the concert.

The audience participation was what made it so great - definitely a big geek crowd. The venue is such that I was in the standing area in the back, but I am tall and remembered my glasses, so it mattered little.

Thanks to a poster in the Johnny D's mens room, I learned that a Malian griot is performing there in two weeks; I will definitely have to go to that concert.

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Nurd.status: content

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Stolen Ringtone
Now people are going to think I have a Kanye West ringtone. I pulled out a short snippet of the Daft Punk song "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger", because it sounds good on the dinky phone speaker, and I work too much. Almost the exact same sample is used in the background of a new West song, apparently. I make a point of not having popular music ringtones!

"Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" from Discovery by Daft Punk

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Nurd.status: annoyed

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Warbussing
So, for kicks, I kept the iPod Touch on active scan the entire length of the 1 and 71 bus routes. Along Mass Ave. there were generally at least 15 detectable wireless networks at any given time, thankfully all password-protected. Among some of the network name highlights:

Wirenizzle
MobileSex
Bush is a Cocksucker
Bluetooth

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Nurd.status: amused

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Victory!
My local Star Market now carries Victory beers, including Storm King Imperial Stout, Golden Monkey Trippel, and Hop Devil.

I win.

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Nurd.status: ecstatic

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XKCD Meetup
Well, I survived. My best estimate is that 700-800 people were there at the event's peak, which was far more than I expected. I suspect that the SWIL equivalents at nearby academic institutions helped mobilize everyone.

There was a preponderance of geeky t-shirts, not just ones from XKCD. I was weird in that I was wearing a boring, collared polo shirt. On the other hand, I didn't want to be "that guy" and wear a shirt from the comic. Plenty of people did that for me.

There was a big wall of signatures - somewhere, on one of them, is a simple "UltraNurd was here." If someone chooses to google that, they will find me.

I chatted for a while with [info]tirerim and [info]carpenter; their presence was not at all surprising, since they live only a few blocks away. I also ran into Mark R., class of something recent; he was at the Swarthmore alumni event a few weeks ago.

I did not see [info]ruthling there anywhere, but she actually took pictures, and I forgot my camera.

The age cohort was not very diverse (a very fast fall-off over the age of... 25, I'd say). A much better male/female mix than I usually see at geeky events; I suppose that's an indicator of XKCD's broad appeal (as opposed to say, Penny Arcade, which to my knowledge is a very male audience).

There were a number of amusing things going on - a tape measure extension contest; some guy wrote out the DeCSS code on a sidewalk; lots of humours signs, posters, and shirts, and generally just a SWIL-write-large kind of crowd. The spectacle alone was entertaining.

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Nurd.status: amused

Nurd.desc
/**
* Welcome to the Den of Nurdage!
*
* Here you will find rambling
* about my latest projects,
* news about fun and schoolwork,
* and a minimum of angst.
**/
Nurd.info
Nicolas Q. Wardington III
User: [info]ultranurd
Name: Nicolas Q. Wardington III
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